Process

The selection process at IIM B consists of essay writing (WAT) followed by personal interview.

Feedback - Essay Writing (WAT)

Average Duration: 30 minutes

Pros and cons of initiatives like the IPL in other sports like badminton, kabbadi, etc. What are the impacts of commercialization of sports?

Solar power is the energy source of the future.

The number of women studying graduate sciences has increased 5 fold in the last 60 years. However, the number of women holding faculty positions in the graduate science institutions is only 15%. What according to you are the reasons for the same? What can be done to improve the situation and increase the number of women faculty?

What does the Cashless economy mean for poor in India?

Save water in Holi and give up cracker on Diwali for environment protection. Is it justified?

A high Scholls survey highlights a new Trend where students shun science and related stream as a career of choice.

Countries such as UAE and BHUTAN have happiness index to oversee social welfare programmes for the well being of citizens. One Indian state has also created a ministry of happiness. Comment on this development.

Feedback - Personal Interview

Average Duration: 20-30 minutesNo. of Panelists: 3

Excerpt from Interview 1-

You have studied in Mechanical engineering and you are working in ITC selling cancer sticks? So, ultimately you supply packaging to the cigarette market? Don’t you think this is wrong or unethical? What choice does a passive smoker have? So after choice it becomes an addiction. People become addicted to smoking and then where is the choice? Do you know about e-cigarettes? Are they less harmful? Say we stop the cigarette market altogether, what would happen to the revenue? How do you find your current job now? You have learnt so much. Then why do you want to do MBA now? You have worked only for 7 months. Why not continue at ITC? Tell me the current share price of ITC. (The interviewer handed a paper to the candidate). Please draw here how the share price varied over the past 1 year. When was GST implemented? You have shown that the price increased after that. Why did it increase? How have the share prices been affected over the past 1 week? Tell us about VIT. How was life there? (The candidate mentioned about playing football) So you were a player as well as a manager? So you mentioned that you have a multicultural team. How did you manage? Did they know English? Why 4-1- 2-3? What is the role of the 1 here? So did you have Chinese people in VIT? How are they? I mean how are they at academics? But the Chinese claim that they have premier universities. Why would they come over to study in India? So there were no Chinese members in your football team? Oh, but they are proficient coders. Are they not? Okay, coming back to ITC. Tell me what you have you learnt there? Tell me one instance when you dealt with something and you learnt and gained a lot from that experience. So it turned out okay in the end? But don’t you have a boss who supervises all this? Considering the volumes at stake? Okay, so the orders you place. Do you have any price agreements in place? How is the gross contribution? What goes into the variable cost? How do you deal with imports?

Excerpt from Interview 2-

So, you are from Kota? Where is it? Why is Kota in news nowadays? What else in Kota? Do you know the recent statement of HRD Minister? Do you read any newspaper? Do they post all the news links? Why do they post the links? How they are going to reduce the syllables? What did you study in 12th Physics? What did you study in Thermodynamics? What is the first law of thermodynamics? How will they reduce the syllabus? Which language is not important among these? What do you think is the reason behind student suicides? In every city of the country, coaching centers are there, but why do suicides happen in Kota? So you did this Supplier Improvement project. Tell us about it. What was your contribution in this? Why do you want to improve these suppliers? Why did you tolerate these suppliers so long? When can you move to the new suppliers? Which parts do they supply? Is headlamp an important part? Is it an aesthetic part? Tell us about your work, what do you do? If your company MD comes to you and asks you to choose any department, which one you will choose? Are you sure? Tell us about your marketing project. Is it your regular job? Do you think Tata Nano is a poor product? Is it a successful product? What are the reasons behind its failure? Can you tell us about any other marketing campaign? How did they turn around? How can you use the IoT to improve the Quality of Parts? Do you know IoT?

Excerpt from Interview 3-

Candidate profile: Fresher, B. Tech (Mechanical)

So you are currently in your final semester. Why didn’t you go anywhere outside to study? What was your rank in JEE Mains then? So what were the other options available? What is the difference between rankings of these institutions? Then why not go for civil in Nagpur or Surat? Don’t you think the difference in rankings is significant? Tell us about your internship at Ford. Have you got a placement in college? Then why not join the company? Don’t you feel work experience is required? So, after undergoing mechanical from NIT, doing internships at Ford, BHEL and SAIL, having a job offer in hand, why do you feel the need for pursuing management education? Which fields of management are you interested in? Why is that so? Why only finance? You said that you are interested in calculations. Without using pen and paper, calculate how many tennis balls can be filled up in an aero plane? You are free to take assumptions. So, why would you fill up an aero plane with tennis balls? How will you make a kid understand how big an aircraft is? Don’t you think it would be better to make him or her imagine the size of aero plane by gestures rather than telling these calculations? So, you have interest in music and I can see that you have done diploma in Tabla with a merit position. Then why not make a career in Tabla?